


Memories Good and Bad

by Nerd7809



Category: Original Work
Genre: Old papers, One Shot, Short Story, descriptive paper, wrote this for a class
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 20:47:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19709152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nerd7809/pseuds/Nerd7809
Summary: I wrote this short story all the way back in 2013, and I figured I should share it since it's just sitting here on an old flash drive. I believe that the assignment was to describe a place or something, it's been a while so I'm not to sure on the details. This is a glimpse of one man's memory, that's about as much as I can sum it up with out just out right telling the story here.





	Memories Good and Bad

One Day’s Work, a Year’s worth of Memories

The old man sat there in his worn rocker, cradling the feather-light teacup, gazing out toward the old mill. As he watched, steam wafted up from pipes and vents of every size and shape lit by the orange work lights along the walk ways and paths of the workers. With a hiss and a squeal, the great beast expelled its reluctant work force, only to replace them with other downtrodden souls. With the blow of a whistle, the old man remembered his time in that place. . .

With a quick glance both ways, the young mechanic hopped across the street to work, jumping the train tracks on the way. With a wave and a smile to his kids, he was suddenly engulfed in the smell of hot grease and ammonia. As he entered the Maintenance shop, he breathed dust filled air as lint marked his footsteps. Dodging his fellow workers, he stowed his lunch in a fridge that was as beat-down and worn as the workers themselves. The crew gathered around a make shift table made of a wooden spool, their toolboxes on hysters and carts around them, dividing out the jobs left over from the previous shift of mechanics and the daily maintenance jobs.

He headed down the many rows of machines, dodging pipes, hoses, and the occasional person, in search of the broken down napper. Through the steam, he glimpsed one still contraption among the chaos, with its cloth tangle and torn, hanging heavily from the rollers like Spanish moss from a tree. Carefully, he slowly extracted the forlorn scraps from their bent and broken pins, by passing the steel rolls of needle sharp teeth. As he worked, a smiling young woman drifted up behind him. She offered her assistance in a yell, startling the mechanic, causing him to loose his focus and balance. With a clatter, he fell into the beast as the needles and teeth hungrily chewed up his forearm.

Embarrassed, the startled mechanic starred numbly at his rash like wound as the woman stuttered an apology. With a red hot face she grabbed his grease covered arm and pulled him from the machine, carefully avoiding his cuts. She introduced herself as Beth Bright, the supervisor in the napping department. Her office was a few rows over, with a first aid kit. He offered to give her a ride to her office in exchange for a patch job on his arm, since the first aid department was on the other side of the plant. She cleaned his arm with a bottle of peroxide, bubbling out grease and dirt like a miniature hot tub, plucking a few needle-like teeth from his skin.

By the time his arm was cleaned, disinfected and wrapped; he had spent nearly an hour in her company. He drifted back to the maintenance shop to pick up his lunch on the way back to the napper, thinking of how odd it was for a supervisor to volunteer her help to a mechanic, her department or not. As he continued his work on the dejected machine, he decided that if Ms. Beth offered her assistance again, he would accept it happily. By the time lunch rolled around he decided that he would stop by her office to see if she wanted to eat with him.

Unfortunately, she was not there, a yellow scrap of paper on her door said she was at a safety meeting; the irony was not lost to him. For the rest of the day he watched for her to pass by as he worked, listening for her sweet, albeit loud, voice among the machines. Suddenly, that deafening, grimy mill had more meaning to him than work. All day he puttered around the little napper, waiting for her as he cleaned and fixed trivial bits and pieces. With a sigh, he left work, trudging across the tracks and the road to his home.

The old man smiled as he remembered the note he found in his mailbox, the other half of that yellow note on her door with a number wrote in sharpie. He had laughed and jumped out in the yard like a fool. The years after they never left that house or that ugly old mill, happy to stay where they were with each other and the mechanic’s children. As the years went by, their memories faded along with their health. Even after Ms. Beth left him, that old mechanic still sat there, his knurled and callused hands gently cupping her glass, his scarred up arm there for all to see.


End file.
